supernova
by CS Fitzgerald
Summary: Someone once said that it's better to burn out than fade away, and the brightest star on the Upper East Side knows this better than anyone else.


**supernova**

_Grant the constancy of truths and laws, of motive, meaning, mind;_  
_of logic, reason, purpose, cause; all the soul can find_

_it's much easier to release you, as I must, less harrowing now by far,_  
_knowing that all human dust was once a star._

* * *

Your body is fashioned from the most colorful of all nebulae, the rarest of the rarefied gasses condensed and molded into scales of colors and hues that don't even _exist_ for eyes fashioned by natural selection. And your own eyes, your beautiful and endless eyes, are plucked carefully from the cosmos as shrunken stars, and can see everything there is to see in the universe, and know no bounds or limitations.

And into that brilliant array of celestial dust, you were born.

* * *

When you first came into the world on a bleak Tuesday morning, you were smiling. Or, at least, that's what everyone told you when they recounted the story.

Later, when you were much older, you would learn that it was that same smile—that stunning, mischievous, heart-stopping or heart-wrenching, sweet smile— you would chose to end your short, briliant life with.

Ironic, in the end, that it began it too.

* * *

Growing up, you became the typical spoiled girl that got everything she wanted - money, notoriety, riveras. And your elitist parents, Lily and William Van Der Woodsen, adored and loved you, just like everyone else on the Upper East Side, who you had wrapped around your little finger.

And at your fifth birthday, aunts and uncles and cousins and friends from around the world flew in just to see you and kept on squealing things like, "_"God, she's so pretty!" _or "_Look how sweet she is!"._ You would just smile politely and put on the mask of a perfect child, like how your mother always told you someone of your social status had to do, because what they didn't know was that you were really thinking, _"Do they really have nothing better to do than tell me things I already know?"  
__**  
**_Even as a child, it was obvious you had a wild streak. You couldn't have known it'd cost you everything.

* * *

You were sixteen when your parents finally let you off for good behavior and allowed you to return back to Manhattan. To your throne on the steps of the Met and to your courtiers, who wore headbands and the latest couture.

You had it all planned out – upon your highly anticipated arrival, you'd rightfully regain your title of Queen of the Upper East Side and your castle would be your home. But unexpectedly, despite your best laid plans and calculations, you fell madly in love with Daniel Humphrey. Not because he was perfect, or because he was rich, like you, _because he wasn't and isn't_. Instead, you love him because he's the first person that wasn't blinded by you.

He's the first person to see more than your name.

* * *

Throughout the next couple of years, you and Dan break up and get back together. Break up and get back together. Break up, and get back together. It's a silly and vicious cycle, really, and it should've come to you as a warning sign of what was to eventually come – but you were barely twenty, young and naïve still, and blinded by the sheer beauty of your first love, so you never once doubted that you'd run into each other arms and end up together.

After all, whenever you imagined your future, it was always with him. No matter what the variables were, no matter what happened, you knew you were destined for each other.

That's why you didn't know what to do as you watched him slowly drift away.

That's why you didn't know how to act when he stopped paying attention to you, and instead, took an interest in your best friend.

That's why you didn't know how to move on when he suddenly replaced you with her, the one who'd always seemed content living underneath your spotlight. In attempt to mend your broken, bloody, bruised heart, you remind yourself that she's just a consolation prize, a cheap imitation of gold. Something you settle with when you can't get the real thing.

And she'll never shine as bright as you.

* * *

It was useless.

No matter what you told yourself, every step you took afterwards, every breath you stole, every minute that passed by, was completely and utterly useless.

Useless if he didn't notice.

Useless if he didn't care.

Without him, all you have left was your resentment, your hatred. You're consumed by those ugly feelings, by your jealousy, by your uncontrollable longing to exact revenge on Blair. You drift for infinities with only that on your mind. And then comes the moment when you finally give into the corruptive dimension that has destroyed your pure beauty. You had expected it to disappear, but instead, you hold sway over it. The distortions then become a reflection of your anger, your hatred, and your body becomes serpentine, filled with venom.

You had to make him yours again. You just _had_ to.

* * *

_She doesn't love you, _you try telling him, as a last resort when your seemingly brilliant plan fails. _She's not good enough for you_—

_And what, you are? Is that what you're telling me?_

Yes, that's exactly what you're telling him. And you can see that he's tired, and a little angry, but not that much, and what you worries you more, the anger or the lessening of it, is the way he turns his head from you, as if he can't stand to look at you, as if he's disgusted by something that's supposed to be so lovely, and stops fighting.

Your voice is pleading, desperate almost, "_Dan"_—

_Get out. _He repeats himself again, but it's pointless. The first time round you already knew you'd lost him.

* * *

For the first time in your life, you're alone. Truly alone.

Slowly, but surely, the loneliness eats away at you, gnawing and tearing you apart. Your once-colorful clothes become blurred into jaundice-yellows and reds that are the color of blood. The rest of your body quickly becomes gray and lackluster, and your eyes, your eyes that had once been the most brilliant stars, become a faded, lifeless shade of blue. And when you first catch a glimpse of that unfamiliar reflection staring back at you, you pick up the closest brush and throw it at the mirror. As the glass shatters into thousands of tiny pieces, you scream in rage and agony.

For someone who was once on the top, you have fallen so very far.

* * *

Six months later, in some motel room, you take one pill, and wash it down, then another, then another. Your mind begins to make you fell hazy; but it's a good kind of hazy, a hazy that your body welcomes, and you lay back on your bed and take another pill.

Then another and another.

Soon enough, you're flying through space, past comets and asteroids and planets still not touched by the hands of humans. You think of your life during those endless moments traveling through the darkness. You think of your family, and of your little brother, Erik, who you haven't seen in years. Even if no else at the funeral cries, you know he will. And then you think of your old friends, of Nate, of Chuck, of Blair and Dan. You wonder if they will always deny you of their forgiveness, even when you're gone and dead and buried six feet under the ground, and find you that no longer care.

Because there's only two things in life you've ever known – how to break the things that you love, and that all stars fade out eventually, burn up with passion and explode, supernova. But the biggest stars, they pull in the world around them, collapsing in on themselves, imploding catastrophically. Although they tried to heal you, the dying star, it was too late. You were gone far before you even met them, and it was only a matter of time after they left you before you would meet your fiery death.

Then, obliterating all your thoughts, there's this _painpainpainsomuchpain,_ that you glow white-hot, blazing, all your nerves and veins and skin aflame as you screams silently.

You're burning up. Ahead, not too far away in the darkness, you can see that are the most brilliant of stars, stars like you, stars that are welcoming you home. Without hesitation, you fly to them, to their core. Satisfied, you close your eyes to the universe and sleep.

Sleep, until you glow no more.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Before fans tear me apart, I admit that while Serena does have many redeeming points, this past disaster-of-a-season, she's reverted back to the old Serena. Thus why I decided to portray her the way I did.


End file.
